Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XVI. He shows further that this teaching is destructive of the confession of the Trinity.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XVI.
He shows further that this teaching is destructive of
the confession of the Trinity.
But still even if your
obstinacy and dishonesty are not restrained by this faith of the Creed,
are you not, I ask you, overwhelmed by an appeal to reason and the
light of truth? Tell me, I ask, whoever you are, O you heretic—At
least there is a Trinity, in which we believe, and which we confess:
Father and Son and Holy Ghost. Of the Glory of the Father and the
Spirit there is no question. You are slandering the Son, because you
say that it was not the same Person who was born of Mary, as He who was
begotten of God the Father. Tell me then: if you do not deny that the
only Son of God was begotten of God, whom do you make out that He is
who was born of Mary? You say “a mere man,” according to
that which He Himself said: “That which is born of the flesh, is
flesh.”2565
But He cannot be
called a mere man who was begotten not after the law of human creation
alone. “For that which is conceived in her,” said the
angel, “is of the Holy Ghost.”2566
And this even you dare not deny, though you deny almost all the
mysteries of salvation. Since then He was born of the Holy Ghost, and
cannot be termed a mere man, as He was conceived by the inspiration of
God, if it is not He who, as the Apostle says, “emptied Himself
by taking the form of a servant,” and “the word was made
flesh,” and “humbled Himself by becoming obedient unto
death,” and “who for our sakes, though He was rich, became
poor,”2567
| 2567 Phil. ii. 7, 8; S. John i. 14; 2 Cor. viii.
9. | tell me, then,
who He is, who was born of the Holy Ghost, and was conceived by the
overshadowing of God? You say that He is certainly a different Person.
Then there are two Persons; viz., the one, who was begotten of God the
Father in heaven; and the other who was conceived of Mary, by the
inspiration of God. And thus there is a fourth Person whom you
introduce, and whom (though in words you term Him a mere man) you
assert actually not to have been a mere man, since you allow (not
however as you ought) that He is to be honoured, worshipped, and
adored. Since then the Son of God who was begotten of the Father is
certainly to be worshipped, and He who was conceived of Mary by the
Holy Ghost is to
be
worshipped, you make two Persons to be honoured and venerated, whom you
so far sever from each other, as to venerate each with an honour
special and peculiar to Him. And thus you see that by denying and by
severing from Himself the Son of God, you destroy, as far as you can,
the whole mystery of the divinity. For while you are endeavouring to
introduce a fourth Person into the Trinity,2568
| 2568 Cf. Augustine,
Tr. 78 in Joan. | you see that you have utterly denied
the whole Trinity.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
